I dropped some poop off at the vet today. Hopefully it's not full of worms! As soon as I get the results I can start Andy on a new dewormer rotation, without worrying that I'll cause an impaction colic. My mom also told me that she is giving me $200 (!) to help with the cost of the vet work that he's getting, which is both surprising and amazing. I never thought I would be unemployed for as long as I have been. I certainly have enough in savings to care for Andy for a few years, but it's disconcerting to see myself burn through those savings so fast. Fortunately, my board is now going down by $100 a month, Andy is super economical in terms of shoeing, and I have an interview for a very good, well-paying job this Wednesday!

I rode again today, a little harder. Andy is probably the most out of shape I've ever seen him, but then again, so am I. Not that he knows it. While it's nice not to have to urge him to go, it's also hard to constantly convince him that we don't have to go fast. When I start up lessons again we're definitely going to have to work on his "whoa!" On a good note, I actually managed to do a few strides of actual sitting trot on him, which I've never managed before! Of course, I can do it on horses with smoother gaits, but he has a very big, very hard to sit trot. But I did it for a little bit, so yay!

My boy is back to normal, and I couldn't be happier. I rode Sunday and today, and he felt really good. No lameness, and he was raring to go. Tonight I even had a few moments where I pretty much lost all brakes. That means that Andy feels good again, no more ouchiness! I think he was just really excited. He literally was a galloping fool, but I would much rather have 1000 pounds of GOOO than a pony with a sore foot. It all reminded me about how he has, and continues to inspire me to be a better rider. Like I've said before, Andy does not tolerate heavy-handed riders, so I've focused a lot on my seat, especially using it effectively to slow him down.

Andy has been very economical in terms of hoof care for me. Normally, horses are trimmed/re-shod every 6-8 weeks. Horses in very hard work, like race horses, or ones with hoof issues are sometimes shod on an even shorter schedule of every 4 weeks. Our farrier comes to the barn on Mondays, as long as there are horses to be worked on. I had her look at Andy at 7 weeks, and he wasn't even close to needing a trim. Then I had her check at 9 weeks, and he still didn't need trimming. Now, at almost 11 weeks he's barely starting to overrun his shoes, so I'll have them done on Monday. To make up for all the money I saved by having a long time in between shoeing I'm getting some regular vet work done on the same day (check-up, vaccinations, blood panel, fecal worm count), so that should take a sizable chunk out of my bank account, but it's all very necessary stuff to do!

Hopefully the vet work will also help me get a handle on bringing his weight up. He hasn't lost any weight over winter since I got him, but he certainly hasn't gained anything. I want him to gain quite a bit. He's very out of shape. I rode for maybe 30 minutes on Sunday, maybe 10 minutes of trotting and only a few minutes of cantering, and he broke a sweat. Before I do any trail riding or serious trail riding he needs a lot of conditioning, but I'm not really willing to do that until I get his weight up. So hopefully the vet visit will be very informative!

I'm happy to report that Andy's behavior yesterday was just temporary insanity. Today I brought him into the empty barn alone and he behaved perfectly. Absolutely no buddy sourness. In fact, he was a sparkling example of ground manners. I rode him for a little bit. He's still sore, but slowly getting better. It was almost like he was apologizing because he knew how mad he made me!

I guess we all have off days. I was feeling pretty off sorts yesterday too; so maybe he fed off of my bad mood and frustration as well.

Buddy Sour

Today was one of those days. Andy was a giant butthole tonight. He was acting buddy sour and herd-bound, which he never does. I'll preface this by saving that Andy is usually a lazy doll on the ground. Even my trainer said he had good ground manners. I usually take him from the pasture in the afternoon. He's not barn sour, and he doesn't have a reason to be, because 6 out of 7 times when I bring him in he just gets fed and groomed. So going into the barn alone is a good thing. Sometimes he may seem a little worried that there's no other horses, but he seems to forget about it pretty quickly. He also doesn't really care about other horses in the pasture, and I see him off by himself most of the time (although he usually is somewhat nearby Lance, but that might be all on Lance's part).

When I went to the barn at 4:45, it was pouring down rain and all the ponies were still outside. They are almost always in before four, and they rarely are out in the pouring rain. So all the horses were throwing a fit. I've really never seen anything like it. They were racing around, and as soon as they say me taking Andy to the gate they rushed it. Everything was just very odd- they were all acting strange, and I was a bit worried that something happened to the BO, because it was so late.

As soon as I closed the pasture gate behind Andy he started to freak out. He was trotting, getting into my space, and neighing loudly to the other horses. When I went into the barn and went to shut the door, he almost ran me over to get back outside. Completely unacceptable. I yelled at him, and made him back up for quite a ways. I will not tolerate a horse that runs over me on the ground.

In the arena he was turning in circles, screaming to his friends, and was obviously freaked out, so I knew he wasn't going to tie and stand nicely while I groomed him. So I decided to do groundwork with him until he calmed down. We practiced leading nicely and stopping and walking on my command, not on his, until he dropped his head and relaxed a bit. We backed and worked on moving over off of my hand too. There were moments when he seemed calmer and responsive to me, but then he would remember that he was alone and the other ponies were outside, and he throw his head out, start breathing faster, and call to them loudly. It was very frustrating and after about 30 minutes I didn't think that I would be able to get him calmed to the point that he would tie nicely without other horses in the barn. So I put him in his stall, hoping his hay would distract him. Nope; he still kept neighing hysterically, until the herd finally came in about five minutes later.

I was so ticked that I just fed him, picked his hooves, and left. I ideally would have lunged him or ridden him hard to let him know that that shit doesn't fly with me; but I don't want to risk flaring up his lameness just when he seems to be improving. Hopefully this isn't going to become a regular thing. It was a weird night, and all the ponies seemed to be riled up. He's never been such a butt on the ground before, so I chalk it up to them being upset that their routine had been changed.

A Labor of Love

As a horse owner, it seems that one winds up doing a lot of stuff that normal people might consider disgusting or cringe-worthy. A few weeks ago, I found myself scooping turds out of an automatic waterer, bare handed. Gross, but necessary. When the weather turns a bit warmer I will also have to (horror of horrors) clean Andy's sheath. Or, more appropriately, pay the vet to come out and clean it, so they can properly show me how to do it, and also give him a syringe full of sleepy-time juice. Today, while I was cleaning Andy's stall I realized that what appeared to be clean, dry dirt actually had a layer of rotting bedding underneath. It was pretty impossible to break up with a rake, but I found that if I grabbed the edge and pulled, it came right up, sort of like peeling an onion. So I spent 30 minutes bare-handed peeling up pissed-soaked shavings. In a week I will have to do the endless dance of worming with Andy, and try to get more dewormer in his mouth than on me.

Why do these things? They're not fun, and put me in an other situation and I sure as hell would touch any animal waste with my bare hands. But this is for my horse, who depends on me for everything. In turn, I owe him everything. I've always felt that humans owe their pets and livestock a whole lot. We have domesticated them, and turned them into creatures that are dependent on us for survival. Therefore, we have to provide them. So I will fearlessly grab poop by the handful,if that's what Andy needs!

The Five Horses We Meet On Earth

This piece is from a book called "Horses in the Yard," by Joanne Friedman.

1. The Intro Horse.
We each came into horses in our own way, but it was always with a horse leading us. This might have been a friend's first pony, or perhaps it was a draft horse on a farm you once visited It might have been a real-life meeting, or an imaginary one. I was escorted to the party by The Black, Walter Farley's star horse in The Black Stallion series...

2. The Experimental Horse
Once you had crossed the line between "Damn, they're big!" and "Wow! Can I try that?" you found yourself face-to-face with the horse that would suffer through your early attempts at figuring out the whole horse experience ... wherever this horse came from, he probably didn't benefit from the encounter as much as you did...

3. The Connected Horse
The first horses we meet don't really connect with us, nor do we with them. Those are experiences in survival and tests of endurance. The Connected Horse is the first horse you truly bond with. This is the horse that sounds a chord that lives so deep in you that you might never have heard it otherwise...

4. The Challenger
Into each horseperson's life, a little challenge must fall. You'll have read that one final training book, bought yourself a clicker and heading rope, and there you'll stand, arms crossed, assessing the situation as if you actually knew what the situation was. It might be difficult to believe, as you are flying down the aisleway on the losing end of a braided cotton line, but you actually need this horse in your life...

5. Your Deepest Heart
There will come a time when you will look at yourself with a cold, appraising eye, and you'll have to be honest about your continued ability to deal with The Challenger and other difficult horses. At that point, you'll seek out the horse that will be your soul mate forever... You'll have bought him the most comfortable, best fitting equipment... Maybe you'll still go to shows and ride - brilliantly or barely - in the Alzheimer's class. Maybe you'll just stay home. Whatever you do, one day you'll realize that after all the money you spent on animal communicators and trainers, you only had to stop and listen and you would have clearly heard your horse's thoughts and desires...

My answers:

1. Stormy. I don't know much about him, other than he was a black horse named Stormy. He was one of those poor horses that walked circles in a traveling carnival that came to the parking lot of the Sunset Esplanade. For some reason I loved this horse, and would only ride him.

2. This would be Mars War Cloud. Between the ages of 7 and 13 my only chance to ride was two or three guided trail rides taken in various places during the summer. These two or three hours were my most highly anticipated and favorite hours of the entire year. One of my yearly rides was taken while my family had its annual camping trip at Cape Lookout, at a place called the Ark Animal Sanctuary. When I was about 12, I got matched with a chestnut named Mars. For some reason, on that hour ride it just clicked. He responded to my leg, was light in the mouth, and just seemed to understand what I wanted him to do, not just blindly follow the horse in front of him, like most trail riding outlet horses do. I loved this horse so much that I forced my dad to take me on a second ride before we went home, and the next year I went back and rode him again.

The story of Mars has a sad end for me. For reasons I can't quite remember, after I was 13 my family didn't go to Cape Lookout anymore, so by 2002 I hadn't been to the Ark in quite some time. I was shocked to see a segment on the evening news about how hundreds of animals had been confiscated from the Ark for neglect. I was shocked. From what I remember, when I was there it wasn't the terrible situation that the news said it was. Of course, you cannot get get a court order to confiscate animals without really good proof of abuse or neglect, so I believe it. Not to mention I was a kid when I rode there, so I really would have no idea how to condition score a horse, or what the proper standards were for hoof care and hygiene.

It was very unnerving for me, because I knew the family that owned and ran the sanctuary, and they loved all the animals. They took in everything, beyond their means. I specifically remember one of the daughters, Peggy, telling me how overfilled they were, but people would call them to take animals and tell them that the animal would be dead if they wouldn't take it (euthanized? starved? I'm not sure on the details but I think, at least for horses, it involved a bullet to the head), and they simply couldn't say no. I've given so much thought to what could have happened to the Ark, and what I believe happened is a simple case of a rescue not being able to say no, like Peggy told me. Eventually they had too many animals than they had money or people to care for, and they couldn't afford hay to feed the 100+ horses, or have people to clean stalls. And because of it, animals suffered.

Of course, this meant that Mars was probably among the confiscated horses. I pleaded with my mom to call the organization that was handling the rescue and ask about the chestnut geldings, and see if Mars was still alive, and if there was any way we could adopt him. Of course, my mom had the money, the car, everything except the desire to spend a lot of money and time indulging my horse dreams, so rescuing Mars was not in the picture. I don't know where he wound up; I'd like to assume that he was one of the horses confiscated and happily re-homed. For me, at about the same time I was about to go into a really rough time in high school. I feel like things would have been a lot different if I had a horse to devote myself to.

On a side note, this taught me that every rescuer MUST know their limits as to how many animals they can support, and never exceed that. They MUST have the ability to say no to animals that they can't care for. And they MUST realize that a humane death is sometimes a good thing. Animals have no sense of "am I going to live tomorrow," and a painless death by way of chemical euthanasia or a bullet to the right area of the skull by a competent person ensures that an animal does not suffer needlessly, and eventually have a long, painful death by cruel means (hello double-decker ride to Canada or Mexico!).

End regretful rant.

3. Lovebug. She was really the first horse that I fell in love with, and that convinced me that a life without horses is no life at all. Always steady, always lazy, Lovebug was the first horse that I fell off of, and she was sweet enough to stand still and not step on me, as I lay on the ground in a stupor. She taught me to post and was my first experience riding English. I'd ridden a lot before, but I just didn't bond with any horse before her. I loved this cribbing monster.And I might get to lease her this summer!

4. Definitely Andy. Which might be surprising, considering that he is my beloved first horse, but we've both come a long way in the past year.

When I started riding Andy regularly, about a year ago, it was a wild ride. I will say that I have improved a lot since then, thanks to almost daily rides through winter and spring term and some very helpful advice from my friend Katie, and now my lovely new trainer. But in January of 2009 I was getting back into shape after six months of no riding. I also lacked a lot of basic skills and knowledge, like knowing my correct diagonals or being able to tell what lead I was on. I had been pretty much only riding Lovebug, but for variety's sake I decided to ride Andy.

Oh boy, was that a wild ride! Andy had one speed then: FUCKING GO! And if he wasn't allowed to FUCKING GO, he would throw a hissy fit of evading the bit, half-rears, pulling back, and squirreling around. When I let him finally FUCKING GO, it was a battle to get him down to a reasonable canter rather than an all-out gallop, which is quite terrifying in a small area with slippery footing. To compound things, Andy's gaits are not for the faint of heart. His trot is big, and his canter is bigger, with this deep, rocky motion. Eventually, I ended up loving it, but at first it was incredibly hard to sit. Andy also liked to make sharp, unbalanced turns and quick stops that threw me forward. Needless to say, it scared the shit out of me, and I just barely stayed on.

Because I am a crazy person, I kept riding Andy. I worked damn hard to become a better rider. I worked on having a better seat, and most importantly, quieter hands, because the one thing that Andy would not tolerate was heavy hands. I stopped riding with a chair seat and crooked back. I pretended that his mouth was made of the most delicate china and focused instead on the cues that I could give him with my seat and legs. Finally, I had to ride him during a polo scrimmage. As I warmed up I was quaking in my boots and half-chaps, but as soon as the game started, a curious thing happened. I got so into the game that I forgot that Andy made me nervous. Without nerves, Andy and I clicked. He was turning on a dime, moving off my leg, and going and stopping at all the right times.

He quickly became my favorite horse to play on after that. It also helped that a lot of other people didn't want to ride him, which I understand. Some people (boys) on the team were very heavy-handed, and they never got past Andy's FUCKING GO/LET GO OF MY MOUTH stage. I realized that I got Andy after I played him in a chukker where he behaved like a doll. I handed him over to his next rider, and he threw a bitch fit, half-rearing, and darting uncontrollably around the arena. We were a team after that. I would take him out in the outdoor arena in the sunshine by myself have a ball, getting into the rhythm of his (almost!) extended trot. The day before he left for the summer, I rode him one last time in the sunshine, sobbing, because as far as I knew it was the last time I would ride him.

Looking back, I can understand why Andy was so crazy. He was stalled 24/7, with practically no turnout, thanks to the jackasses at the OSU Horse Center, in combination with high amounts of grain and lots of alfalfa. Any horse would be batshit nutty on those conditions, especially a Thoroughbred that's a known runaway. Now that Andy is at my barn he gets turned out all day in a 30 acre turnout, and he is one lazy cucumber. I found that when I work hard on transitions with him his stops becoming much less unseating, and lateral work has done wonders for his sharp turns. He still challenges me sometimes, but it is a good thing, and it makes me become a better rider and horsewoman.

5. ???? Maybe it is Andy, but I feel that now is too soon in my experience and in our relationship for me to be positive. Only time can tell, so I guess we'll see...

Unfortunately, since my last post I've been dealing with some mild lameness with Andy. My barn owner and I agree that the most likely culprit is a stone bruise, or something to that nature, from when the pasture was frozen rock solid. It's not too bad; just off in the trot. My first inclination was to call the vet right away, but BO and my farrier both advised me to watch and wait. So I've been waiting and watching. Finally, this last week I could tell that we had some improvement. I rode him very briefly in the arena, and while he was still off, he was markedly less uneven. On the left rein he seemed almost sound. So he's not better yet, but definitely on the road to recovery.

That little shit makes me worry so much! I was so upset when when I first noticed that he was off. So I had the farrier and BO look at him, and we found absolutely nothing. No hoof sensitivity, no obvious bruise, no swelling, heat, or sensitivity ANYWHERE. So here I am, worried to death as I brought him out to the pasture. Right after I took his halter off, he squealed, and broke right into a bucking canter, off to find his buddies. Obviously if he felt good enough to run and buck, he wasn't hurting too bad.

So for the past month, I've had a very big pet to take care of. Lame horses still need food, grooming, worming, and stall-cleaning. And the funny thing is, I really don't mind! Caring for animals has always been a pleasant task for me, even some of the icky stuff (like picking turds out of an automatic waterer. Really, Andy?) So my barn routine of late has been pretty relaxing- clean the stall, bring in Andy, feed and groom until he is puuuurty, rinse and repeat!